Echo
by poetanddidntknowit34
Summary: John can't believe Sherlock is risen from the dead, and he refuses to forgive so easily. (Inspired by 'Echo' by Jason Walker)


"Don't you dare, Sherlock Holmes!" John stuck out a hand and backed himself into a corner. "Don't you DARE take another step!"

Sherlock stood on the threshold of 221B, cheeks flushed from running, hands shaking from fear. "Then what do I do?"

"Get out! Leave! How dare you show your face to me after what you put me through?!" He shouted loud enough to wake the whole of Baker Street.

"What is going on?" Mary Morstan entered the flat through the kitchen door and stood in the living room, looking back forth between the two men that had taken off at a sprint, leaving her alone int he restaurant with questions and barely enough change for a cab.

"John, please understand that I-"

"No, Sherlock. Get out of MY house."

"John," Mary forward and placed a steady hand on her fiancee's arm. "Please calm down. You're being rash."

"I'm not being rash, Mary. You of all people know what this man- this machine of a human has put me through."

"I apologized, John. I explained why I had to do what I did. I did it to protect you." Sherlock took a step into the room.

"No, do not come any closer if you value your nose, because I swear to god, Sherlock, I want to really hurt you right now."

"John!" Mary grabbed him and shook him roughly. "Calm. Down. Now." John looked into her eyes and took a deep breath.

It was completely silent in the flat, the tension in the atmosphere made the hair on the back of Sherlock's neck stand on end. "John, I want to make it better." He took a tentative step forward. "What can I do? What do you want from me?"

John turned and strode right up to his former friend. Staring coldly into his eyes, John said evenly, "I buried you, Sherlock. And I wish you had stayed that way." He shoved his way through Sherlock and stormed out the door and onto the street again, leaving a shaking and broken man in his wake.

Sherlock slept on the couch, hoping that John would come home in the night, cooled down and ready to talk. Ready to forgive. But he awoke with a start the next morning when the door slammed shut. He sat up and looked around. John hadn't just come in, he'd just left. Seven cardboard boxes were neatly packed and stacked next to the coffee table, a violin case placed on top. John must have boxed up Sherlock's room and brought it down in the night. The detective stood and looked at the yellow sticky note tacked onto the violin case. 'You have until 6PM'.

Sherlock's phone buzzed in the pocket of the wrinkled suit he'd slept in. It was Lestrade. "Hello?"

"John just texted me. Said you needed help lifting some things? What's that about?"

Sherlock sighed deeply. "Apparently, I'm moving out."

* * *

Sherlock didn't push John. He waited for his blogger to come to him. He pretended it didn't hurt when John blew right past him at the Yard when he'd come to have lunch with Lestrade. He tried hard not to cry when Lestrade had to cut a case short because he had to be up early the next day for John's wedding; he was the best man, after all. But he couldn't keep it together when Mrs. Hudson passed away and left the doctor the Baker Street property to lease out as he pleased, and John didn't even tell him.

Three months after that incident, Lestrade turned up on John's doorstep with a case for the former army doctor. "Greg, I don't solve cases anymore. I didn't even really solve them before, I was just there. Why don't you get that ruddy detective to help?"

"No one has seen or heard form Sherlock in two months. Even Mycroft lost track of him, which is almost a miracle with all the surveillance he had pointed at his brother. We went by his flat to investigate, thinking he'd moved, but all of his things are still there, just not him. He's on the 'Missing Persons' list for pretty much every city in the country, but no results yet."

John dropped his head and stared at the porch. "Do you think he's in trouble?" He said in a small voice.

"What do you care?" Sally Donnavon scoffed from behind Lestrade. "You dumped the freak out onto the sidewalk. And about time, I'd say. After what he did to-"

"That's enough." Lestrade said. "Will you help with the case? I'm desperate and you're the best I've got right now."

"No, I'm sorry." John shook his head. "Those days are gone. I honestly couldn't help if I tried."

Lestrade thanked him anyway, and led Sally back to their cab. John shut the door and slowly slid down the back in a daze. Mary walked out into the hallway. "What's wrong?"

"Sherlock's disappeared. He's on the missing persons list."

"I thought you were done with him? You told me the night he came back that you didn't care what happened to him."

"I didn't, but now that something has, I realize I do." John looked up with a tinge of fear in his eyes. "He IS my best friend."

Mary went into the kitchen, opened the junk drawer, and pulled out a sticky note. "Mycroft called a few days before our wedding and gave me the address for Sherlock's place. I kept it until you were ready for it."

John stood and took the address, planting a kiss on his wife's forehead. "I love you. You know me better than I know myself, and I thank you for that." He ran out of the flat and towards the direction of his friend's new home.

832 Langley Street wasn't the cleanest building, and it's residents weren't the safest-seeming people, either. Why Sherlock had picked this place, he couldn't guess. John climbed the stairs until he reached 832C and knocked on the door. A dirty, short red-headed man answered. "What?"

"Does Sherlock Holmes live here?"

The man shrugged. "He might. But I don't even know if Steve is real half of the time, so another person wouldn't be a surprise." His eyes widened in realization. "Are you real?"

John looked the stranger up and down, reading the clear signs of ecstasy and meth use and squatter attitude. John pulled his gun. "Do you legally live here, yes or no?" He demanded.

"Well, not technically, but-"

"Out." John said. The man ran down the stairs, but stopped suddenly and started crying in the stairwell. John entered the flat and saw exactly what Lestrade had said he would: Sherlock's things were all there, still in the boxes John was regretting he packed, but no Sherlock. He looked for clues, anything that could tell him where his friend had gone. But, just like the DI and British Government before him, he found nothing.

John, however, had a resource the other two men didn't: Sherlock's homeless network. He went back out to the pavement and began looking for someone sober enough to help. What he found, though, was what he had been hoping against. Under the infamous Homeless Bridge, Sherlock Holmes lay on the cement ground, shivering despite the warm summer day. "Oh Sherlock." John whispered, throwing himself down and rolling his friend over. Sherlock had a needle in his hand, the empty tube and lulling, blood shot eyes told John everything. He picked the taller man up and carried him the three blocks to St. Bart's, every labored, ambulance-less step an apology for his behavior and neglect. Each whispered syllable of the detective's name echoed hollowly in the infinite space John had drove between them.

The nurses and doctors in the ER scrambled as soon as the two old friends collapsed through the door. "No," John shrugged the nurses off, "Not me. Him."

Sherlock was hauled onto a stretcher and wheeled away, John trying his hardest to follow, only to be stopped by more nurses and a policeman; everyone asking for the story of what happened to the two detectives. John told the tale, the words tumbling out like water through a broken dam, and by the end, he was sobbing and standing on liquid legs. A nurse came over and led him into a small exam room, and began to treat him for shock. John just let her work, numb tears continuing to release all the feelings he had suppressed for the five years since The Fall. Finally, he blacked out and fell back onto the exam table. Hours later, he awoke and tried to get his bearings and remember what had happened.

He'd found his best friend under a bridge, half dead from drug use and starvation. He swallowed the fresh tears and found a nurse. "I need Sherlock Holmes' room."

"Name?"

"John Watson."

She looked at a chart in her hands. "You're his emergency contact, so we can let you in. He's stable now, but still in ICU. He was close to overdose on cocaine, and hasn't eaten in a month. He's very lucky, but suffered some brain damage, so be gentle. There's no telling what he'll remember and what has been erased from his memory." The nurse opened a door.

Sherlock lay on the bed, so thin and hooked up to so many machines, he was more metal than man. John collapsed into the chair next to him and grabbed the icy hand. "Please, Sherlock. Don't leave me." The detective's eyes fluttered open with difficulty, and looked at his friend. "I am so, so sorry, Sherlock. I do forgive you, and I want you to move back to 221B. Please."

The argent eyes and now sober brain were focused fully on John, but the old flatmate didn't speak. Finally, he opened his mouth and asked sincerely, "Who are you."

John dropped his hand in shock; the drugs had burned John straight out of the detective's memory, and the Sherlock he knew had died scorned and shunned by his only friend. John placed his head in his hands and started to cry again. "This is all my fault."

* * *

watch?v=RiwKZUYMvaE


End file.
